


Beautiful

by RembrandtsWife



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: M/M, None - Freeform, Romance, Series: Sine Nomine Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-10
Updated: 2013-05-10
Packaged: 2017-12-11 04:57:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/794188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RembrandtsWife/pseuds/RembrandtsWife
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim and Blair muse on how they see and sense one another, and come to an understanding.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beautiful

**Author's Note:**

> I know where this one came from. It is fathered by all those gorgeous pictures of RB and GM on the net, esp. the Drabble pictures, and mothered by Francesca's "In the Eye of the Beholder" stories, which showed me an issue my series hadn't dealt with yet. Thanks, Francesca, and thanks, MegaRed, for the Drabble pictures.

## Beautiful

by Merri-Todd Webster

Author's webpage: <http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Cafe/9298/titles.html>

Author's disclaimer: Not mine but Pet Fly's, world without end. Amen.

* * *

Beautiful  
by Merri-Todd Webster  
(25 November 1998) 

He really has no idea how beautiful he is. Gorgeous, really. But it goes beyond that. He's the first--and I hope the last--lover I've gotten to know with all my senses, everything turned way up, and everything about him is beautiful. Everything is perfect. 

Start with the looks. Most of the guys in the bullpen think he's an odd-looking little thing, but then most of the guys in the bullpen are totally straight. They just see a guy who doesn't look like their definition of a guy; they don't really see him from a sexual point of view, or even just an aesthetic point of view. Yeah, he's shorter than average, and he wears his hair long and makes no attempt to hide the fact that it's curly, and he dresses in all these layers like he's freezing all the time, which he is. Not exactly a coverboy for GQ. 

But that doesn't keep the women away from him. Or the gay guys. A day that Blair Sandburg doesn't get hit on is like a day without orange juice. Or in his case, without an algae shake. He may not have the body, well, that I do, but his face alone does it for most people. That face sure does things for me. 

I guess it's partly that he seems, I don't know, androgynous. God, now I'm even starting to talk like him. That long hair that he pampers--hair that's like raw silk to my skin--the fluid way he moves, the way he approaches people, without confrontation, the way his emotions are always right _there_ , on his face, in his hands, his voice, his posture--those things are kind of feminine. But you could never mistake him for a woman. Not that voice. Not that nose and jaw. Not that beard stubble or that hair on his chest. Believe me, I've had him naked in my arms--to be perfectly blunt, I've let him fuck me, and Sandburg is all man. And hung for such a short guy--length isn't everything. 

I love the hair. I am fixated on the hair. The way it feels--I love twining my hands in it, or burying my face there so I can kiss his neck through the curls, or having it fall over my face when he's kissing me, over my cock when he's sucking me. That is such a turn-on, I think it's the hair that brings me off as much as his mouth. 

Not that I don't love his mouth. It's that androgynous thing again--lips a model would kill for, bones you can't mistake for a woman's. And he's an incredible kisser. I used to think that you were too old to neck if you were over 21. Not any more. I could neck with him for hours, and have. Not to mention what else that mouth can do.... 

The body hair. I have the absolute minimum. If I were a woman and had the same amount of body hair, I'd shave under my arms once a year. Sandburg is furry all over. The long hair, the beard, the mat on his chest. A narrow line of it down his back, thickening near the base of his spine and then running down between his buttocks, to match the line on his belly. Thick, fluffy curls on his belly, his balls, his thighs. Thank God he doesn't mind when I play with his hair, or else he'd have killed me by now. "I gotta be butch somehow, Jim," he said once, and laughed. 

The hands. They move like birds. I just love to watch 'em. Small hands with short fingers that bring fire everywhere they touch me. Capable hands that can cut vegetables for a Chinese dish, splice wires and bring a wounded machine back to life, type faster than I can think. Hands that talk along with his mouth; Sandburg is never still nor quiet. I kiss those hands whenever I get the chance. I kiss him whenever I get the chance, and it's not often enough. 

But it goes beyond his looks, at least for me. Blair is my consolation prize for having these fucking hyperacute senses. The sound of his voice affects me like the purr of a cat; even when he's not trying to Guide me, I always feel calmer, happier, if he's talking to me. The sound of his heartbeat centers me, keeps me focused. The sound of his breathing reassures me. 

The way he smells gives me a hard-on, most of the time. For one thing, he doesn't use any product that doesn't smell at least tolerable to me. We both wash our clothes in Murphy's oil soap, use unscented deodorant and unscented most everything else. He uses one shampoo, herbal-scented, and one conditioner, sort of chocolatey-smelling, because I like the way they smell on him. He uses a little bit of patcholi sometimes--a little bit is great, more than a little is suffocating. 

But underneath all that there's this raw smell that's just _Blair_ , and nothing overrides it, nothing completely covers it up. It's him, his sweat, his hormones, his feelings, his arousal, and I could die a happy man zoned out on that smell. It took me a while to get up my nerve to ask him, but not too long ago, I asked, while we were having sex, if he would just lie there and let me smell him. Sniff him, I guess. Most men would have either laughed at me or been disgusted with me, but Blair just said, "Sure, fine, Jim, whatever," and let me do it. I went over every inch of him, my nose about three inches from his skin, and every inch smelled good. And whaddaya know, it turned him on as much as me. 

Sex with Blair Sandburg really does make me a throwback. A primitive. Little short of an animal, except that I never forget how much I want to please him. Seeing him, touching him, hearing his reactions, even smelling the scent of him isn't enough; I have to taste him. And he tastes so good. My preferred beer, wine, and liquor pale beside the taste of Blair Sandburg's mouth. He's made me an oral fiend. I could suck him off, then roll over and go to sleep, content, without his doing a thing for me. Not that he'd ever let me. I won't rest until I've tasted him everywhere, three or four times. His come, his sweat, his spit, his skin, his hair. One by one he strips away my inhibitions, without even trying, and I let go and go wild just because of the _presence_ of this beautiful man who won't let me tell him how gorgeous he is, who just laughs and says, "You're the one who's gorgeous, big guy. Not me." I can't convince him with words, so I'll just have to show him with actions. 

Come here, beautiful man, and let me drown my senses in you. 

* * *

He really has no idea how beautiful he is. I've tried to tell him, but the words don't seem to work. I find myself scouring poetry books for passages that might describe him, but not enough queer poets have written about their lovers, or else I'm looking in the wrong places. 

If you look up "masculine" in the dictionary, you find a picture of James Ellison. See also under "butch", and "buff", and "macho". Sometimes I think the man has an extra Y chromosome or something. Sometimes I wonder what he sees in me. 

I know he's tried to tell me that he thinks *I'm* beautiful, just like I've tried to tell him, but it's no use. I mean, we're just not connecting, here. I look in the mirror and I do not see my definition of "beautiful". I see my definition of--of me. I see weird. Happy weird, but weird. I see short, stringy, and hyper, with features that don't match up. 

I used to stay away from guys like Jim. I never let myself date the big, muscular types who really got me going; it was just too much, too scary. I couldn't even let myself find out if a guy like that liked me. I stuck to skinny, hairy intellectuals like myself, guys who were comfortable with each other but never in awe of each other. And let me tell you, I am in awe every time I see Jim Ellison naked. I guess I'm a Tantric at heart, because I want to worship his cock. Jim Ellison naked is as much religious experience as Blair Sandburg needs. 

So sleek, not fuzzy like a teddy bear. Broad, broad shoulders and long, long legs. Legs like tree trunks. A cock that deserves to be worshipped--calling him "big guy" took on a whole new meaning after we became lovers. When he fucks me, I want it so bad I don't even think that it might hurt, that it might be hard to take in a man that size. Half an hour later I go, What the hell was I thinking? It's like putting a missile up your ass. But I exaggerate, as usual. 

Jim's secret, see, is that he's as gentle as he is big. He doesn't have much opportunity to show that in his chosen profession, but I think it'd make him a great dad, once he got over his fear of hurting the baby. He was even afraid of hurting me, at first. Boy was I glad when he got over that. Sometimes roughness is necessary, and it doesn't mean anybody'll get hurt. 

He's just so perfect. Perfect skin, perfect build, perfect face to go with the body. I wouldn't complain if he let his hair grow just an inch or two, but I'll never complain if he doesn't, either. Perfect cock, perfect balls, perfect mouth, perfect ass... but I digress, here. Jim is perfect, physically speaking. I turn into mush when he takes his clothes off. He not only fucks me senseless from time to time, he fucks me _speechless_. And that's a first. 

So why can't I convince him of this? Get him to see how beautiful he is? He spends hours at the gym working on those muscles; he has a perfectly disciplined body. Why's he doing it if not to look good? "I have to be in good shape to be a cop, Chief." Yeah, right, like there aren't women cops as broad as they are tall and men cops as soft as the doughnuts they live on. 

He has the disciplined body; I have the more disciplined mind. Well, maybe not, but all my words can't convince Jim Ellison that he's beautiful, that he's the apex of masculine perfection. "Yeah, right, Sandburg." So I try to show him by the way I look at him, the way I touch him, the way I kiss that set mouth until he smiles, the way I make love to him until his control just dissolves. I worship his body; I worship the soul it enshrines. 

I love Jim Ellison. He's beautiful. 

* * *

"So what do you see?" 

"A skinny, hairy little guy in the arms of a god." 

"Give it up, lover. What do you see?" 

.... "Two men who love each other, standing naked in front of a mirror. The taller man with his arms around the shorter man." 

"That's better. What else do you see?" 

"Well, two men who are both getting very turned on by this...." 

"You bet." 

"I'm not getting any less turned on by your kissing my neck, Jim." 

"That was not my idea." 

"So what was your idea?" 

"Just keep looking in the mirror." 

... 

"You're killing me, lover." 

"No, I'm not. Now what do you see?" 

"A _very_ turned-on little intellectual in the arms of his equally turned-on studly lover." 

"Blair...." 

"I just don't see it. I don't see it." 

"Well, I do. I see a beautiful young man, a wild boy from out of some legend, in the arms of a tired old Neanderthal who's finding out that he can still... enjoy being alive." 

"Jim--" 

"I see a faun who isn't looking for a nymph 'cause he's been captured by this big ol' satyr. See, I can get classical, too." 

" _Jim_ \--" 

"I see a man who is beautiful, and lovable, and _loved_ , in the arms of the man who loves him more than anything and thinks it's a _privilege_ to love him." 

"Why do you say you're not good with words? But I see two of them." 

"Two of what?" 

"Two men who are beautiful, and loved." 

"You do, huh?" 

"More than anything, Jim." 

"I know that." 

"I know you know it." 

"You're beautiful." 

"So are you." 

"You want me to make you come now?" 

"Lover, that's only the start of what I want." 

* * *

end 


End file.
